You Should Probably Stop Charging Your Phone to 100%

Do you plug your phone in and set it on your nightstand every night before bed? Well, you may want to stop leaving your phone charging overnight and even avoid charging it to 100% when you can. The batteries inside of smartphones are typically lithium-ion, and their incredible ability to be recharged is part of why they have become so widely used. The problem is, charging your phone up in one giant burst actually puts the lithium-ion batteries to a high level of stress that could end up hurting them in the long run.

When you keep your phone charging after it is full, the small charges that occur to keep it charged actually wear down on the chemistry in the battery, according to Tech Insider. The data comes from Battery University as they are trying to teach everyone how to properly care for all of the batteries in our devices. For our smartphone batteries, it is better if we can plug them in throughout the day, in little ‘charging bursts.’ This is the best technique to maintain healthy batteries.

While it may not be the easiest thing to do, charging your phone after only a 10% loss in battery life is the best method to charge your phone. Most people don’t have access to a charger 24/7, but the key takeaway is to plug in your phone whenever you can, making sure not to overcharge it or leave it plugged in. Among the other tips, keeping your phone cool when you charge it will also help the lithium-ion batteries to last longer and not… explode. We all need to learn better battery etiquette so our phones don’ die quite as fast.